Books: Waldo

THE LETTERS OF RALPH WALDO EMERSONColumbia University
Press6 vols. ($30).

The best letters are brief, direct, factual.
The best letter writers are usually women and soldiers, who observe
closely, state simply. Worst letter writers are usually writerswho
philosophize. Among topflight U. S. letter-writing writers have long
been Henry Adams, Henry James, John Hay, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Ralph
Waldo Emerson. Last week readers who could spare the price could look
at all the Emerson letters they were ever likely to want, in six
good-looking, gilt and salmon-pink volumes. Of these letters, claims
Editor Ralph Leslie Rusk, 2,313 have never been printed...